Lifesaver or Liability?

Dec. 6, 2006 — -- "I can't bring my kid back but maybe we can get somebody to take responsibility," says Tammy Lufkin. "I am so upset."

Lufkin was still absorbing the death of his son, Pfc. Caleb A. Lufkin, who died last May from injuries sustained in a bombing in Iraq, when he got the news: Army doctors had given Caleb a controversial drug in a futile attempt to save his life. One of Lufkin's customers at his lumberyard in Galesburg, Ill., who'd read news reports in connection with Caleb's death, told Lufkin about it.

The drug, which has been approved by the FDA only to control bleeding in rare forms of hemophilia that affects about 2,700 Americans, has been given to more than 1,000 of the Iraq War's wounded troops. Though it's touted as an important medical advance by U.S. Army medical specialists, rF7a is not considered a proven treatment by many civilian doctors and its longterm effects on trauma patients have never been studied.

Civilian doctors use the same risky drug on U.S. soil, for similar reasons.

"I am so upset that I didn't know that they'd given him Factor VII," says Lufkin, referring to Recombinant Activated Factor VIIa -- or rF7a, sold as NovoSeven -- a blood-clotting medication. "When he was at Walter Reed and his arms were always swelling up and he was itching like crazy, I was asking them a million questions and they didn't tell me anything. It felt like they were blowing me off."

Medical experts contacted by ABC News say that using any drug off-label is a risky endeavor. When there is little scientific data to support the safety and dangers of a drug, off-label use becomes a judgment call that clinicians must make and make carefully every time they use the drug.

"Any drug that is used off-label is dangerous because we don't have any data in objective clinical trials that discusses risks and benefits," says Jawed Fareed, a pharmacologist and director of the hemostasis and thrombosis research program at the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Loyola, Ill.

The U.S. military insists that its data shows no increase in complications attributable to rF7a in their trauma patients. "Our ongoing clinical experience continues to indicate that this drug can be very effective in stopping fatal hemorrhage," says Col. Paul Cordts, an Army vascular surgeon.